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friends. He told my uncle about his invention and how he sold it to his company but they never marketed it.
When the aircraft plant shut down, my uncle approached him to buy the chemical solution.
Jay: So your uncle bought out the rights, the patent, whatever?
Linda: There s no patent to it. The inventor felt that in spite of having to tell the patent office absolutely
everything about it, even if a chemical engineer took the product and broke it down, he might be able to see what
was in it but he could never calculate the percentages.
Jay: They could screw around forever trying to duplicate it and it wouldn t work?
Linda: Right.
Jay: So unless it s a certain combination, it doesn t work?
Linda: Right. My uncle, through the music business, has about 10 or 15 customers he has sold it to.
Jay: What kind of businesses would they be in?
Linda: People in the music business anybody who makes their own instruments. But we found that it works
on rasps, so we ve gone to horseshoing places and big ranches.
Jay: Is it very expensive to use? What are the alternatives? Instead of using yours, what would they have to do?
Linda: There are no alternatives. What people have been doing for years, is throwing the tool away and buying a
brand new one. The only other alternative is sand-blasting, and that s not economically feasible.
Jay: Okay. So for $18.95 for a quart of sharpening solution, what does that do?
Linda: It will sharpen approximately 30 10-inch files.
Jay: Then what happens? Is the solution still usable?
Linda: Basically, yes. You put the files in it and the residue from the file will gunk it up. You can use it forever;
the product never actually breaks apart. You just don t get the best results.
Jay: So it s better to buy another quart or gallon or whatever? What does it cost you to make it?
Linda: A quart costs me around $5.01.
Jay: So it costs that much? Does that include the packaging too?
Linda: Yes.
Jay: What about a gallon? What does that cost you?
Linda: About $7.38.
Jay: Do you make it yourself?
Linda: Yes.
Jay: You said horseshoers are a prospect. What does it cost to buy a new rasp?
Linda: They estimate anywhere from $15 to $25.
Jay: How long do they typically last if they don t use your solution?
Linda: Once it gets to the point where you would throw it away, our solution can sharpen it giving it another life.
We can do that five times.
Jay: If I were a horseshoer and I bought a rasp, but didn t have accessibility to your product, how long would
that rasp last normally?
Linda: The easiest way to figure it is on your usage. With some people a rasp might last six months and with
some it might last a week, but they average two months.
Jay: So you make a rasp, instead of lasting two months, last almost a year.
Linda: Right.
Jay: So, if you have to buy them every two months and they re $15, one rasp sharpened five times...you can do
30 in one quart. So the savings could be hundreds of dollars. Do you have a lot of analytical studies that will
show that?
Linda: No, basically all I have is proof of people using it.
Jay: Who s been using it so far? Tell me the clients you ve got? What do they do?
Linda: Well, I have several of the ranchers around my specific area.
Jay: And they use it for what?
Linda: For the files that they use on their animals.
Jay: Who else?
Linda: I have some clients in the music business who use it for custom-making mandolins or guitars, and some
cabinet makers people who work with wood to make cabinets and some machinists and locksmiths.
Jay: And do you have letters from them? Testimonials from them?
Linda: No.
Jay: Okay. The first thing I want you to do is get letters from them. Get testimonials from them. Try to
quantify specific performance. In other words, a letter saying, Before I bought your product, I had to replace my
rasps or files every two months. Now because you ve prolonged their life, I have to replace them once a year.
Conservatively speaking, I believe every time I spend $18 on your product, it saves me $200 on files. Get
analyses like that. I saw the ad that you ran. Where did you run this ad?
Linda: I ran it in Fine Woodworking and Western Horseman.
Jay: Okay. Now, you re saying it pulled only four responses in one of them. Did any of those responses buy
anything?
Linda: No.
Jay: I m looking at the one from Fine Woodworking.
Linda: I got a little over 50 from that magazine.
Jay: Of the 50 people, how many bought?
Linda: Around 30.
Jay: How much did the ad cost?
Linda: $795.
Jay: Just at $800, you got 50 responses and how many orders?
Linda: Thirty.
Jay: The average order was how much?
Linda: $31.
Jay: So an $800 investment brought in $930 in sales. It cost you probably $150 to manufacture the product,
right? So you actually almost broke even! Okay. Let s start a couple of things. There is no other alternative
other than sandblasting. Files you can t resharpen either, right? Okay. We ll talk about ads and we ll talk about
mailing pieces. We ll talk about focusing the market. Do you know anything about marketing at all?
Linda: I don t have any marketing experience at all.
Jay: Did you get the material I asked my people to send you?
Linda: Yes.
Jay: Did you read it? Did it give you any ideas?
Linda: Yes, what I need is a Unique Selling Proposition and I m not sure I have one.
Jay: Yes, you do. Let s put it together. Your Unique Selling Proposition should be, Amazing Chemical
Solution Prolongs Life of Files and Rasps Up to Five Times. That would probably be what your offer is, isn t it?
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